


when I can't get close to you I come undone

by prettybrilliantfunny



Category: Justified
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-27
Updated: 2014-01-27
Packaged: 2018-01-10 05:42:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1155791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prettybrilliantfunny/pseuds/prettybrilliantfunny
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Folks come back from the sandbox usually go one of two ways: they either join law enforcement stateside, or contract out as hired guns.  AU where Tim chose the latter.  Everything’s five-by-five, until some sour-faced looking hill people out of Harlan County put out a hit on one U.S. Deputy Marshal Raylan Givens.</p>
            </blockquote>





	when I can't get close to you I come undone

It was simple really.

Tim was a damned good shot, and there were plenty of people who had wet work needed doing.  Specifically, people who’d like that work to be a little _less_ wet than the local thugs had a tendency of making it.  Hiring out your hits to junkies with sawed-offs led to more mess and trouble than it was worth; so if you had the money and the means, you hired yourself a professional.

So Tim flitted around the upper South – Nashville, Memphis, some distant outlets of the Dixie Mafia – for a few years after the sandbox before he ever ended up in Kentucky, and found a surprisingly steady line of requests for his particular set of skills.  He set up shop in Lexington, found a bar he liked, and began filtering jobs.

And that’s the way it went for six months.

 

\--

 

Tim stared at them.

 

He preferred to do his business over the phone, with nice clean money drops.  But the payout on this particular job had been so big, that when they’d demanded he come out in person...

Hell, no wonder they’d wanted to meet; most of the contractors out of Kandahar would have hung up the phone as soon as they heard the word “federal.”  Tim wasn’t all that certain he’d have heard them out either, but now that he was here—

His curiosity was undeniable piqued. 

“Just so we’re clear – you want me to kill a U.S. Marshal?”

He’d never had to take down a federal before—usually he was sent after the asshole bottom-feeders too dumb to get the hell out of dodge when they screwed their bosses’ wives or thought they could run off with twenty pounds of pure-grade cocaine without so much as a by-your-leave.

“What’d he do to bring $300,000 of your wrath down upon him?”

“Don’t matter what he did,” the big man growled; too quickly for the reason to not be personal.  “We’s paying you to put him down. End of story.”

Tim hummed noncommittally.  “You sure you boys are prepared to deal with the fallout?”

It must have sounded like a threat, because the big man suddenly rose up to his full height and moved it right into Tim’s personal space.  It was the smell Tim most took offense to.

Certain as he was that he could drop the Neanderthal if he so much as blinked improperly in his direction, Tim was unimpressed by the deep-set glower aimed his way and let it show.  If anything Tim’s calmness seemed to anger him further.

“You threatenin’ us, pretty boy?”

Tim’s expression remained unfazed; and he responded demurely: “A Deputy U.S. Marshal, the one that just so happens to be causing you and yours endless amounts of trouble—I think I’m right in assuming—just so happens to drop dead...and you don’t think those badges are gonna descend on this holler like the wrath of God?”

The dumb one took a step back at least (for which Tim’s nose was grateful)—and shot an embarrassingly confused look at his brother.

“You don’t miss, we won’t have no problems.” The slighter of the two unzipped the duffle that had been sitting pretty on the table, and it opened tantalizing around the jumble of banded bills.

Tim sucked his teeth.  “I don’t miss,” he said.  It wasn’t a “yes,” but they took it as such.  He’d been stating a fact, but he didn’t correct them.  He probably would have taken the job anyway.  He wasn’t exactly on the sunny side of the law as it was, and he liked a challenge.

“How long?”

Tim chewed the inside of his cheek, jaw clenching – a flash of visible ire – before his face settled back into passive blankness.  He was done with these hillbilly drug lords after this.  “Well, it’s been a while since I was takin’ down someone who was already expecting to be taken down,” he said.  “So I suppose... _however long it damn takes_.”

The gorilla’s face darkened, but before he could say something Tim was gonna make sure he regretted, his brother put a hand on his arm and his heavy mouth chomped shut again.  Tim marked the exchange with a lazy gaze – as much a deception as the rest of his performance – and picked up the small duffle, his $100k cash advance satisfyingly heavy in hand.

“I’ll be in touch,” he said, and stepped out of the trailer – not bothering to feign caution, or draw his piece.  Their backwater egos didn’t need it; and maybe the one was smart enough to see see a sniper’s turned back as the insult it assuredly was. 

Tossing the duffle in the passenger seat of his Yukon, he threw it into gear – eager to put Harlan County in his rearview mirror and return to civilization.

 

\--

**Day 1**

He didn’t know what he’d been expecting.

But it seemed as soon as he put his ear to the ground everybody with something to hide had an unkind word or two about a certain, enterprising marshal.  It wasn’t hard to gather that Givens and his shoot-to-kill brand of justice got around.  He had to be careful with this one, though.  Tim liked Kentucky all right, and he didn’t want to have to shuffle because of some federal shitstorm.

The shot had to be perfect.

 

\--

**Day 2**

 

It was easy enough to figure out where he lived—just sit long enough outside the courthouse and trail him six cars back when he left—and he probably shouldn’t have been surprised to find him living out of a motel on the stagnant end of town.  Even though Givens had been transferred there sixteen months, he was still clearly resisting the idea that he was back in Kentucky for the long haul.

It made Tim’s job both easier and more complicated in equal measure.  He wouldn’t have to deal with nosy neighbors (9 times out of 10 the best kill-shot came while the mark was at home, alone), but there was still a fair amount of foot-traffic to consider and he wasn’t as familiar with this area of Lexington.

He wasn’t worried though.  If it took time, it took time.

 

\--

**Day 6**

 

The main problem, he discovered, after several days of casing the motel, was that as difficult as Givens was at driving (the paranoid asshole never took the same way to work twice), it was nothing compared to how difficult he was at the motel.  Maybe he’d had some military experience, or maybe he knew just how many people were out to kill him on any given day, because he kept his curtains drawn at all times. 

It made for very dull nights behind the scope.

Tim had gotten a feel for when Givens was likely to be alone, and he knew the faces—if not the names—of what was looking to be a string of leggy blonde women that passed through that door.  But it was those damn curtains, brown-burgundy and fading flowers, for him night and day.

Eventually, it became a measured risk.

 

\--

**Day 7**

Givens left for work at 8:36. Tim sat in his Yukon three blocks in the opposite direction, counting down from sixty again and again in the silence, drumming Neil Young into the steering wheel for forty-five minutes and until he was satisfied.  Then he got out of the car and started walking.

 

 

These old hotels were too easy to break into.  They misplaced keys so often and were too cheap to replace locks, so it had only been the work of an hour to masquerade as a contrite employee at the local lock and key and pick up a spare master.  He was holding it now in his jacket pocket, middle finger slid securely through the key ring.

His long strides crossed the gravel of the lot and then he was on the split porch.  He slid the key home with absolutely certainty, turned it, and pushed open the door.

But he didn’t enter.  He didn’t even step foot across the threshold.  He was getting a feel for the marshal, and he wasn’t going to give any further sign that something might be out of place—not a footprint in the carpet, not a whiff of foreign aftershave. He moved quickly.

From his other pocket he retrieved a small button camera. It was already active and transmitting.  Ignoring the urge to look around, he reached up next to the doorframe and tucked the small camera into the shadowed pleats of the upper curtains; it’s faint roundness blending into the center of a fading gold flower.

Then he pulled the door shut, locked it, and walked away in a different direction than the one he’d come from.

 

\--

**Days 8-15**

 

He set up his nest on top of an old cannery a little more than 1,000 yards to the southwest of the motel.  A mottled birch was growing up through his sightline, but it provided him cover from paranoid eyes and he was confident he could make his shot through it, leaves and all.  The small laptop he brought with him relayed the camera feed and his rifle sat by his side, ready to be taken up should the opportunity arise.

Over in Afghanistan, he and the other snipers would have to wait targets out for days before getting a clean shot.  It was grueling and draining and not the best way to spend your days and nights in a hostile desert. To stay focused, they were taught to think up stories about their targets—what their favorite color was, what embarrassing way they lost their virginity; shit like that.

So he watched Givens put on that stupid Stetson every morning, settling it with one hand til its perfectly askew.  Watched him eat ice cream at all hours of the day, and drink enough shitty coffee to drop a horse.  (“I’m Raylan Givens and I was born without taste buds.”)

The button cam worked like a charm. 

He was attractive—undeniably.  But god did he make some piss-poor decisions.  And that was with Tim, silent and watchful, giving him the benefit of the doubt.

 

 

It was unseasonably warm one morning, and Tim was hoping it would be enough for Givens to open the window—so he sat with his rifle in line, and one eye on the feed.  Instead, Givens was standing in front of his closet, jeans slung low on his skinny hips and still unbuttoned.  He’d come out of the bathroom a few minutes ago, dripping like he didn’t know how a towel worked, and pants already on (to Tim’s mild disappointment).  He seemed to be stymied by the vastness of his wardrobe; though Tim knew he had all of five shirts, two suits, four ties, and an honest-to-god denim jacket _.  Lightwash_.

“So much time, so little choice.”

The marshal fingered his black shirt—which Tim wouldn’t have minded—then slid it aside.

“Haven’t killed anyone lately, better save it.” Tim laid the accent on thick, all swagger.

Then Givens pulled a plaid shirt in garish purples, browns, and reds, and Tim bit the inside of his cheek.

“I’m Raylan Givens and I like to make it as hard as possible to get laid.”

He watched him grab a slender tie in cherry red and really, if the asshole wasn’t going to open the shades so he could shoot him, then he could at least put Tim out of his fucking misery and shoot _him_.  He wasn’t entirely sure how much more of this he could take.

“I’m also colorblind,” Tim muttered, watching him knot the tie crookedly and sling a dark suit jacket on over the whole offensive lot of it.

 

 

He was of course licensed to conceal, but that didn’t mean he wanted to try and take him out with a Berretta in broad daylight.  Still, the nest got tiresome, and there was a vague off chance he’d get lucky and Raylan would decide to wander into a dark alley somewhere.

Raylan hit up his usual coffee place, some shack at the end of Market Street that should probably have been condemned years ago.  Tim couldn’t imagine the coffee was anything but tar, but since Raylan wouldn’t know good coffee if it bit him on his non-existent ass, Tim doubted he cared much.  He drank his own expertly brewed dark blend from a hole-in-the-wall he’d discovered; from a block away, his shaded eyes scanning the headlines of a newsstand.

It was probably a risk to trail him, but he so rarely went anywhere that wasn’t work or the motel, that when he’d walked out that morning, Tim hadn’t been able to keep from following him.  He was curious.  What did a Deputy U.S. Marshal who liked to think of himself as a gunslinger do in his spare time?

Eat ice cream apparently.

Tim was acutely aware of where his mark was at any given moment, but the next time he actually crossed through his eye-line he was carrying an ice cream cone.  Plain vanilla by the looks of it.

Tim glanced at the inside of his wrist, though he didn’t really need to.  He knew it was only 10am.

The Sunday market was in full swing, and he spent the rest of the morning trailing faintly after him, not sure whether he should be amused or exasperated by the older man.  He wandered in and out of stalls, all the while keeping his back to whatever end was most defensible, his eyes finding the pathways to the open road—Tim knew; his own body was a parallel line, his ingrained habits faltering the first time he watched Raylan shift and felt his own body moving in echo.  He _was_ military then.  Marines, maybe.

He stopped to watch an old man pick his way expertly through an old Johnny Cash song and tipped his hat at an elderly woman, still dressed from church, as she came up to drop a neatly folded bill in the player’s guitar case.  Yes, to Tim’s half-hearted dismay, the hat remained – even when Givens wasn’t out intimidating hick fugitives.  He was wearing an old t-shirt, thin from washing, and sometimes the sunlight would catch on the jut of his collarbones before he turned away to say something low and all-teeth to a vendor, drawing out their laughter like honey. 

Tim bought a peach from a young girl and ate it primly over a street grate, waiting for Raylan to move further on.  The juice was sweet and warm, and the sun felt nice on the back of his neck.

 

\--

**Day 16**

 

Givens got a call at 7am and was out the door before Tim had even finished setting up; he hadn’t figured there’d be a decent shot as he moved from his room to his Town Car (there never was), but he was surprised all the same to see him up and out so early.

He could have tailed him, but that hadn’t seemed like a prudent strategy at the start and it didn’t look any more promising now.  If he was a betting man, and he was, he’d put money on Givens being the kind of man who sussed out a vehicle tail from six blocks away.  He didn’t fancy getting made that way.  With $300k on the line, he could afford to be patient.  Quite literally.

 

He waited, calm and relaxed in the quiet of his mind, but Givens didn’t come back that night.

Or the next day.

Or the day after that.

 

\--

**Day 20**

 

Raylan had been gone for four days.

Tim had stopped going to the nest (there didn’t seem to be much point), but he kept the laptop open on the kitchen table, and would often find himself wandering past for no reason at all, as if he could will the marshal into suddenly appearing.

His mornings felt strangely lacking in the quiet solitude of his house; he was usually in the nest by 6:30, the remains of his coffee going cold in the Yukon.  He’d finish his breakfast—something like a granola bar or an apple—while Raylan ate his (coffee and something with sugar), his hair sleep-mussed and the lines of his fatigue showing at the corners of his eyes.

Now Tim drank his coffee staring at the white wall of his refrigerator.  His cereal went to mush in the bowl, while his mind wandered.  He wondered absently if he should buy magnets.

The days passed slowly.  Some hours they didn’t seem to be passing at all.  He watched an old Clint Eastwood with a beer and forgot he’d ordered pizza until the bell rang twice.

He went the long way through the kitchen; the motel room was still empty. 

When he walked back into the living room, Eastwood was drawling through clenched teeth, his Stetson tipped low over his eyes and Tim forgot what he was supposed to be doing for a moment.

He stood halfway into the room; skin feeling too tight and the cardboard burning hot against his palm.

This wasn’t the longest he’d ever had a mark, but it was getting dangerously close. 

He was certain he hadn’t been made, so it could only be that a case had taken him out of Lexington.  Maybe even out of Kentucky.

He started to wonder how often that happened—then forced his mind into neutral blankness.  Staying focused behind the rifle was one thing; he didn’t gain anything by speculating about the comings-and-goings of a life he was being paid to end.

Givens would be back eventually.  And, sooner or later, Tim would put a bullet between those hazel eyes of his.  The scum of Kentucky would have one less good guy to worry about, and Tim would get to go back his normal life—drinking, sleeping, and all that.  At least until the next mark came along.

 

 

Tim wasn’t worried.  He still had time.

He cleaned his rifle, and ignored calls from Harlan numbers.

 

\--

**Day 21**

 

“I’m Raylan Givens and only real men drink whiskey.”

 

Raylan had gotten back that morning, trailing a bag of donuts and a faint tan behind him as he slipped back into the motel.  Tim was on his feet and grabbing his bag before he realized Raylan had thrown himself face down on the bed, boots and all.  Tim hesitated, his hand on the lid of the laptop, but it was clear after a moment that Raylan had fallen asleep.  Tim couldn’t help but laugh 

That had been hours ago.  He had taken his time getting his kit together before driving back to the nest; Raylan had slept on through lunch and well into the afternoon, clearly exhausted from whatever had taken him away from town, and Tim had spent the hours comfortably folded up in the corner of the cannery’s roof, the laptop balanced on his knee and the sun on his face.

 

 

Whatever had knocked the cowboy into a facedown was also apparently a cause for celebration, because the only thing that eventually roused him was the arrival of his boss and a few coworkers, all but knocking his door down and dragging him next door to a bar named _Lucky’s_. 

Abandoning the laptop, Tim had shifted his set-up to follow them, and now he was watching Raylan get his coworkers steadily drunker and drunker through the bar’s front-window.  Even through the cross-hairs of the scope, he looked like he was enjoying himself.  The sleeves of his henley were pushed up and he was trying to convince a woman in a tailored suit to take the salt of her shot from his wrist; Tim guessed her refusal had been vehement enough, because Raylan was laughing outright.

He took up the bottle of Jack again—“puts hair on your chest,” Tim supplied dryly—and his boss was the first to hold up his empty glass.  Tim was pretty sure he could outdrink Raylan, but for every two drinks he poured for others, he slugged back a healthy dose himself.  His mouth twitched in an almost-smile; it might be close.

 

 

 

It happened so suddenly, Tim almost missed it.  One minute he was inside drinking a round with his boss and the woman – Rachel – and then he was out behind the bar, leaning back against the shadowed bricks and looking down at the square of light his cellphone made in his hand. 

The lamp-lit streets were empty. Quiet.  The trigger was a curved comma against the pause of his callused finger. In the cross of his scope, he found the gleam of Raylan’s temple, shot through with silver. 

He exhaled.

Slowly, slowly.

Raylan sighed, pressed two fingers against his left eyelid and ducked his head – a familiar gesture Tim recognized immediately. Raylan had no business playing poker with a tell like that; his fatigue and frustration in intimate play across his face.

Tim hesitated.

With all his being focused through the sculpted mirrors of that tiny scope, he hesitated—watching Raylan tuck his phone back into his pocket and rake his fingers through the waywardness of his hair before resettling his hat and stepping out of the alleyway.  The moonlight scattered in the faint clouds, catching for a moment in the hollow of Raylan’s throat and Tim froze behind the trigger, a man of stone.

Then Raylan passed down the street and out of sight, and the rush of staved adrenaline was hot white noise in Tim’s ears.  A perfect shot – maybe the only opportunity he was going to get – and he hadn’t taken it. 

“ _Shit._ ”

He sat back, lowering his rifle in frustration.  Only when he let go did his hands start shaking.

 

\--

 

Later he’d remember why they stopped teaching new recruits that particular trick of telling stories. Later he’d remember all the snipers that got too close to take the shot.

Right now he was just pissed.

He took it out on his liver; exercising his god-given right to drink cheap liquor to excess. He went through vodka like water, running out of ice before he was satisfyingly drunk, so he drank the last third warm.  He drank in a way he hadn’t since he’d gotten back from basic and found out his dad had the nerve to die before he got home. 

This late there were only the shit westerns playing.  Tim let the TV run with the sound off because he was still hearing all that white noise; after a few drinks though it got muffled, like he was hearing it through water—but what he wanted was silence so he could think.

How the hell were you supposed to shoot somebody who tipped his hat at every _single_ little old lady that passed him on the street? Who woke up every morning and checked the gun under his pillow before checking the time? And when he gets pulled in on a Saturday morning, takes one last half-hearted look back (at his probably-shit) motel bed, before sighing and getting up all the same?  That bullshit’s adorable.

He grabbed the remote, switched to something with explosions and fast cars, and cranked the volume.  He didn’t wanna think.  But when the vodka ran out, he went to grab another bottle and found the unopened bottle of Jack he didn’t remember buying.  Until he did.  His fingers pressed warm and pale against the dark label and he knew what it was doing there.

“God, I fucking hate you,” he said, swearing at someone who wasn’t there.

Then he grabbed his jacket and walked out, the cupboard left hanging open still.

 

\--

**Day 22**

 

He can’t do it.  He knows he can’t.  ( _Fucking asshole._ )

But he can’t let some other rifle-toting military dropout come round and kill the stupidly attractive idiot either.  He knows it as sure as he knows he’s drunk, closing out a bar ten miles away, and then walking the whole way home.  And he knows it in the stone-cold sobriety of morning, the sun rising at his back. 

There was nothing for it, he decided, but to take his money and his not-so-inconsiderable-threat back to that holler and settle once and for all the matter of one Raylan Givens.  So, with $100,000 riding shotgun again, Tim headed for Harlan.

 

 

All things considered...it didn’t go as smoothly as he’d hoped.

 

\--

 

“So you’re the sniper my boys hired.”

 

Her name was Mags Bennett, and she didn’t look like much, but that was enough for Tim to view her as a potential threat.  The money was sitting on the counter between them in the same duffle as he’d gotten it in, albeit a bit more bloody than it had been.

“Yes, ma’am.” Tim’s hand settled lightly on his gun; the “sheriff” that had directed him to the county store hadn’t been foolish enough to try and disarm him. “That’s all the money he gave me in advance of—“

“$300,000 that wasn’t his to give,” Mags cut in. “I got plans for that money and don’t none of them involve killing a federal.”

Her face was grim, but she had a ruthlessness Tim rather admired.

“So we agree on something.”

She was also refreshingly blunt: “Did you come down here intending to kill my boy?"

Tim shook his head, but didn’t move his hand from his holster.  It hadn’t been his intention to bring bullets into that particular conversation, and he told her much. “No, ma’am.  Only to return the money, and to make something clear about Deputy Marshal Givens.”

Her eyes narrowed a little at that, and whatever tension was rising in him, Tim was careful to keep it from his face.  He went on, keeping it as short as he was able.

“I am sorry for your loss.  But your boy—he had a young girl he was holding hostage with a gun to her belly.  Said he had a mind to separate her from her insides if I didn’t leave.  And I might have done,” he admitted, “but it was clear from his manner that he intended to do this girl a grave injury either way.”

He shrugged. “And, well...I couldn’t let that happen.”

Whatever else Mags Bennett was thinking, she seemed to take him at his word.  Nodding, she brushed the hair from her face in a self-conscious gesture, and her gaze moved to the window briefly—maybe in the direction of that little girl, Tim couldn’t have been sure.  “You saved Loretta,” she said after a moment. “And I’m grateful for that.” 

She exhaled.  “Coover was born stupid, but he grew up mean; I suppose treating Loretta like I did didn’t sit well with him.” She eyed Tim now.  “I appreciate you bringing the money back.”

She was angling for something in her tone, but Tim wasn’t able to give it to her whatever it was; it was simple. “I didn’t do the job; I don’t get paid. That’s all there is to it.”

“Take $20,000 – for your pains. And for what you did for Loretta,” she said without insistence.  They’d both been in this game too long for that; instead, she just slid the money across the table and Tim took it, slotting it easily into his inside jacket pocket.

“And now I think you’d best go.”

Tim nodded and took two steps back.  Then he paused, raising a finger.  “One more thing.”

He smiled, tight-lipped.  “The marshal?  He’s off-limits.  This debacle aside, I don’t want anyone else from this lovely town of yours getting... _ideas_.  It would be unfortunate if I felt I had to come back down here.”

Mags snorted; amused or offended, he couldn’t be sure.  Probably both, given what she said next:  “I run this little world, of that you’ve wagered right.  But now I can’t control what situations your marshal friend might find himself in.  Or the _injuries_ he may sustain in the course of these...altercations”

Tim kept his face a stone.

“As often as he comes to Harlan—“ Mags broke off, shaking her head.  Tim had the sense she was remembering an event long past.  Then her eyes settled on him with a hardness.  “Raylan attracts trouble like bears to a honey pot and sure as rain it’s gonna catch him one day”—(Of that Tim had no doubt)— “…but I can promise won’t nobody be coming after him.  Whatever else, he’s one of ours.”

Tim knew that was as good as gold around these parts; and he took it as the deal it was.  _I’ll keep mine away from yours, and you keep away from mine._

“I appreciate that, ma’am.” He tipped his head and started for the door; never giving her more of a target than his shoulder, his hand hovering lightly over his weapon though she’d never so much as hinted she was carrying.  He paused at the door though, looking out into the night for a potential shooter, and then glancing back.  “I’ll be watching.”

Mags stood unmoving at the counter; everything in her stillness an echo of a threat. “I won’t forget,” she said. 

And Tim saw Coover’s heavy form collapsing all over again, like a broken doll. 

 

No, he didn’t suppose she would forget.

 

\--

**Day 47**

 

He was going to be late, but that was nothing new.  Art owed him anyway.  Probably.

Pushing a couple bills across the counter, Raylan didn’t wait for his change; just grabbed his coffee and headed for his car.  He hadn’t even made it to the parking lot when another body collided roughly with his, and—“ _Jesus Christ!_ ” 

He jumped back to avoid the scald of coffee, and the styrofoam hit the sidewalk and caved.  Coffee sprayed away from his feet, missing him completely but almost hitting the toes of a pair of black boots.  Tongue angrily in cheek, he raised his head to ask just how blind the other fella was—and was immediately cut off.

“I’m so sorry,” a low voice interjected, accent tight but pronounced.  Tennessee, maybe? Either way he hadn’t sounded properly apologetic.

Then the blonde slid his sunglasses up onto his head, and Raylan lost control of his fool voice for a moment.  Those were some blue eyes. The stranger’s mouth was a still-pressed line, but Raylan had the strangest impression he was smirking at him.

“At least I saved you from drinking that garbage.”

 “ _Hey—_!“ Hell, now he was annoyed again, but the blonde cut in once more, smooth as honey.

“Let me buy you a decent cup of coffee.” (If he was getting played, then damn was he getting played like a fiddle, because he was almost sure now of the blonde’s amusement.  And his interest.  It was vibrating off him like a subtle humming.)  “I know a place." 

Then with one last (blue) look, he slid his sunglasses back down and turned away.  He started walking, one hand in his front pocket, without even so much as a look back to see if Raylan was following.  The kid was cocky—but Raylan could already feel himself smiling.

He glanced down at the coffee now completely soaked into the sidewalk, and shook his head a little; he was already late.  Might as well be a little more. 

Settling his hat again, he followed after the smug blonde, his long stride closing the distance with deceptive quickness.  Then, at the last moment, he slowed his pace—keeping just a step behind the whole way.

 

Somehow, he thought it might amuse him.

**Author's Note:**

> for lauren, my co-pilot. sucker.


End file.
